HOW TO MAKE YOUR REVISION LESS “URGH!”

There’s probably a hundred things you’d rather be doing than sitting down to revise and that, for most teenagers, is the problem. There are two ways to solve this issue: either suddenly develop all the willpower of an elite runner training for a marathon (good luck with that) or find a way to make revision more fun. That way, there’ll only be fifty things you’d rather be doing than revising.

Here are three things you might try to brighten up your revision time. We can’t guarantee they’ll work for you, but they’ve worked for others in the past, so they’ve got to be worth a shot.

TURN YOUR REVISION INTO A JOKE. A great way to remember tricky facts, dates or people is to come up with a witty way to recall them. Take geography, for example. How do you remember the capital of the Phillipines? Well, Phillip’s a man’s name, so it must be Manila. Or the capital of Finland? Fin, finished; and where do we all go when we’re finished? To hell, of course. That’s right, the capital of Finland is Helsinki.

OK, so these little jokes won’t get you onto Michael McIntyre’s Comedy Roadshow, but they will help the facts to stick in your brain. You can up the ante by introducing your friends to the game with a daily competition to see who comes up with the funniest memory joggers. You’ll find this method really works, and you’ll be the one having the last laugh when the exam results come out in August.

WATCH A FILM. It might feel like you’re raising the white flag if you leave your desk and plonk yourself down in front of a screen, but that all depends on what you’re going to watch. You can always watch the film adaptation of the book you’re studying for English or, if you’re a foreign language student, how about a top film from that particular country to help brush up on your vocabulary?

You’ll already be an expert at tracking things down on YouTube, but instead of drum-playing kittens how about searching for short films and videos covering some of the subjects you’re working on. You’ll be surprised how many you’ll find.

MAKE THINGS MORE COLOURFUL. There’s nothing less inviting to look at than a wall of words in blue or black ink with no headings or spacing. Using different colours when you’re writing out your revision notes might sound like a simple tip, but you’ll be amazed at the difference it makes. In fact, recent research shows that writing in colour has been shown to help us retain 50-80% more information than the standard black or blue.

For the best results, you need to choose your colours carefully. The number one colour to use is red as it stands out like a flaming beacon. Yellow and orange are also attention-grabbing colours, but avoid dull shades of brown or grey. You’ll find 47 different colours in STABILO’s point 88 range so, if you don’t have enough options in your pencil case already, that’s a really good place to start.